The Human Resources Generalist serves as the primary HR business partner for the Albert Lea, MN location, providing comprehensive human resources support to leaders and employees while ensuring alignment with organizational objectives, employment laws, and company policies. The role is responsible for partnering with leaders to drive employee engagement, performance, compliance, talent initiatives, and organizational effectiveness.
The HR Generalist works collaboratively with the onsite HR Coordinator on onboarding, orientation, onsite events, and other departmental initiatives. Together, they deliver a seamless employee experience while ensuring HR services are responsive, consistent, and aligned across the organization.
This role requires an experienced HR professional who is confident in navigating complex employee situations, coaching leaders through difficult conversations, and balancing employee advocacy with sound business judgement.
Core Competencies: Business Partnership, Employee Relations Expertise, Professionalism and Integrity, Continuous Learning, Courageous Conversations, Adaptability
Key Responsibilities
HR Business Partnership
- Serve as a primary HR resource for the Albert Lea facility, building trusted relationships with leaders and employees.
- Partner with managers to provide guidance on employee relations, performance management, attendance, corrective action, organizational changes, and workforce planning.
- Coach leaders through challenging employee situations while ensuring consistency, fairness, and compliance.
- Support managers in developing leadership capabilities and reinforcing company culture.
- Analyze timekeeping and relevant workforce data to proactively help leaders manage schedule discrepancies, attendance issues, and other labor concerns.
Employee Relations
- Investigate employee concerns and workplace issues, recommending practical and legally compliant solutions.
- Facilitate conflict resolution and difficult conversations with professionalism, discretion and empathy.
- Interpret and consistently apply company policies and employment practices.
- Maintain confidentiality while exercising sound judgement in sensitive situations.
Talent Management
- Partner with hiring managers throughout the recruitment and selection process.
- Assist with interviewing, hiring recommendations, and onboarding transitions.
- Support employee development, performance review processes, succession planning, and talent initiatives.
- Identify trends that may impact retention, engagement, or organizational effectiveness.
- Recommend innovative approaches to recruiting and hiring based on company needs.
- Effectively establish and maintain community partnerships to help drive our talent pipelines.
Compliance & Risk Management
- Ensure compliance with federal, state and local employment laws and regulations.
- Maintain accurate employee documentation and personnel records.
- Support HR audits, reporting requirements, and policy administration.
- Partner with Facilities, HR and Operational leadership regarding workforce compliance as needed.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Continuous Improvement
- Work closely with the HR Coordinator to ensure a seamless employee experience from onboarding through employment.
- Coordinate HR responsibilities to maximize efficiency while providing exceptional customer service to employees and leaders.
- Partner with Payroll, Safety, and other functional teams to resolve employee matters across the company. This may include, but is not limited to, answering questions, providing feedback, and proposing changes to policies or procedures.
- Participate in HR projects, process improvements, and organizational initiatives that enhance operational effectiveness. This includes staying informed of changing employment laws, HR best practices, and emerging workplace trends.
- Pursue ongoing professional development and continuously expand HR knowledge and capabilities.
- Contribute ideas that strengthen the HR function and improve service delivery.
- Help facilitate conversations, paperwork, and required documentation pertaining to incident reports, reasonable suspicion, workers compensation, work restrictions/ limitations & workability reports, ADA or other medical/required accommodations, and leaves of absence.
Education & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience required. In lieu of formal degree, a minimum of 5 years of progressive Human Resources experience with broad generalist responsibilities is preferred.
- SHRM-CP, PHR or related Human Resources certification preferred.
- Strong working knowledge of employment laws and HR best practices.
- Demonstrated experience managing employee relations and coaching leaders through complex workplace situations.
- Manufacturing or multi-site HR experience preferred.
Skills & Qualifications
- Ability to build credibility and trusted relationships across all levels of the organization.
- Emotional intelligence + effective communication and organizational skills.
- High level of professionalism, integrity and confidentiality.
- Excellent working knowledge of MS Office suite (Outlook, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint).
- Ability to work in a team environment and demonstrate a high degree of tact, discretion, confidentiality, and diplomacy.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities with limited direction.
Physical Requirements
This position regularly requires sitting, standing, walking throughout the manufacturing facility, operating standard office equipment, and occasionally lifting up to 20 lbs. Frequent interaction with employees in both office and production environments is required, which may include prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working at a computer. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities or limitations to perform the essential functions of the job.
While not required for the role, there may be the opportunity to travel to the corporate location in Brooklyn Park, MN and/or other facilities in the U.S. from time-to-time to support training, recruiting, or other HR projects.
Compensation & Benefits:
- Competitive Salary :$72,000.00 - $82,000.00 DOE
- Comprehensive Benefits Package:
- Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, Life Insurance, Disability, ADD, 401(k), Paid Time Off, Paid Holidays, Floating Holidays, ESST.
Disclaimer:This job description is intended to convey information essential to understanding the scope of the position and is not intended to be an exhaustive list of skills, efforts, duties, responsibilities, or working conditions associated with the position. The position will also assume any other additional responsibilities as assigned by the manager. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Design Ready Controls is an equal opportunity employer.Design Ready Controls is committed to providing competitive total compensation and benefits packages. This listed range is based upon a full-time schedule. This is a good faith estimate on the applicable range. Base salaries are determined by taking a variety of factors in account, including, but not limited to, candidate qualifications, education, geographic locations, market conditions and internal equity.
Pay: $72,000.00 - $82,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Flexible spending account
- Health insurance
- Health savings account
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Tuition reimbursement
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
